From “The Great Gatsby” to “To Kill a Mockingbird”, and even “The Call of the Wild” people have been writing about the rebels that save the day. Now, new heroes have awakened at Medina High School, two teachers work to spread awareness about Banned Book Week and raising your voice.

Banned Book Week is sponsored primarily by the American Library Association. According to the ALA website, this annual event celebrates the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information.” This is a national event but has been brought to Medina High School in a new and interesting way thanks to English teachers Ms.Shelly Leuthold and Mrs.Kelly Kriner.

These past two years, Leuthold and Kriner have been hiding books around the school. “It’s just like a scavenger hunt,” Leuthold said. “Some being more difficult to find than others.”

The two teachers pay for these books out of pocket and get them from Goodwill, Hidden Treasures, and The Book Shelf, a second-hand bookstore on the square, which uses proceeds to support adult literacy. They don’t look for any specific books, just ones on the banned list that are in good condition.

All the scattered books had a note on the inside cover describing why they were challenged.

Leuthold stated that this year a larger variety of titles were added. Leuthold said, “All seem to be extremely popular, this time around we tried to get middle school and even upper elementary, and we did throw in some adult titles like ‘The Color Purple’, ‘Water for Elephants’, and ‘My Sister’s Keeper’.”

The American Library association also sponsored the Rebel Twitter Tournament. This is an event encouraged participants to create vlogs about banned books, take selfies with them, and post them to Twitter using their hashtags. Those posting were automatically put into a raffle for a $50 ALA Store gift card and three different books on freedom of speech.

More information about Banned Book Week can be found on www.bannedbooks.org, and the Rebel Twitter Tournament at www.ala.org.